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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL Year: 1946 Rating: ***1/2 |
Supposedly Dan Duryea, a leading man/antagonist hybrid from the Hollywood Golden Age... who excelled in multilayered lowlifes... never played piano before portraying pianist/songwriter Martin Blair: and yet the way he effortlessly pounces his fingers across all the right keys, you wouldn't know he wasn't a professional musician outright...
Handsomely paired with June Vincent, the intensely faithful blonde spouse of a falsely-accused-of-murder lover of even more gorgeous blonde Constance Dowling... and both the victim and accused needed a longer setup for the rest of BLACK ANGEL to make more sense, twofold...
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| June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
As in, why is frantically determined Vincent so smitten with an otherwise low-key, average-looking husband... other than their already-existing marriage lazily explaining itself? And most important: why was Dowling the kind of gorgeous vixen that several men wanted to murder (Vincent even says at one point, "I wish I knew more about her")...
Opening with Duryea obsessively staring off towards an upper-class building where the sultry debutant lives, he winds up telling riled wifey that imprisoned hubby (conveniently about to face the gas chamber) never entered the building... as the rest of the picture involves the pair in what could have been a breezy romantic dramedy, or even a semi-musical...
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
Their surreptitious investigating ruse as a pianist/singer duet working for none other than the always capably leering/famously shifty Peter Lorre, who owns the central nightclub that makes DARK ANGEL fit more within the asthetically brightly-lit CASABLANCA style than its own murkily titled noir/thriller...
Which is an entertaining enough potboiler... only Dan Duryea and June Vincent (both more effective in harsher roles) deserved more from the plot-line and relationship that, right when their combined energy builds into an intriguing "they really should hook up" union, the final act gives away too much, too soon, and far too easily.
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| Peter Lorre and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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Constance Dowling in BLACK ANGEL
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| Constance Dowling in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Wallace Ford and June Vincent (from SHED NO TEARS) in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Peter Lorre and Freddie Steele in BLACK ANGEL |
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Dan Duryea and June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL with Peter Lorre and Freddie Steele
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| June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Peter Lorre in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Peter Lorre in BLACK ANGEL |
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| June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Peter Lorre in BLACK ANGEL |
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| June Vincent and Dan Duryea in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Dan Duryea in BLACK ANGEL |
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| Constance Dowling in BLACK ANGEL |
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| June Vincent in BLACK ANGEL |
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